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Translated Scholarship and Japanese Universities: How Have Translations of Western Scholarship into Japanese Affected and Biased Japanese Academia?
Since the early Meiji period, Japan’s ‘catch-up’ development strategy has been heavily reliant on the importation of ‘advanced knowledge’ from the West. Japanese higher education has assumed a pivotal role in the dissemination of Western knowledge through translation. This seminar addresses how cultural transmissions, facilitated by translation, have impacted Japanese higher education and the manner of thinking cultivated thereby. A key concept is the notion of ‘pseudo-deductive’ ways of thinking, developed through the process of translated scholarship from Western knowledge into the Japanese language. This has been accompanied by the development of both images of ‘advancement’ and abstract understandings of the meanings, but often the realities corresponding to such words as ‘democracy’, ‘human rights’, and/or ‘education’ did not exist in Japan. The employment of such abstract concepts and translated words also facilitated the establishment of authority on the part of professors; one-way lecture styles have historically been the most prevalent teaching method in Japanese universities. The discussion will also address positive outcomes of these processes.
Date:
17 October 2025, 17:00
Venue:
St Antony's College, 62 Woodstock Road OX2 6JF
Venue Details:
Pavilion Room, 4th Floor Gateway Building
Speaker:
Professor Takehiko Kariya (University of Oxford)
Organising department:
Nissan Institute of Japanese Studies
Organiser:
Nissan Institute of Japanese Studies
Organiser contact email address:
administrator@nissan.ox.ac.uk
Hosts:
Professor Kristi Govella (University of Oxford),
Professor Hugh Whittaker (University of Oxford)
Part of:
Nissan Institute Seminar in Japanese Studies
Booking required?:
Not required
Audience:
Public
Editor:
Andrew Melling
